I want to read this evening in a number of places in the New Testament. First of all, in the Colossian letter, a letter of the Apostle Paul to the Colossians, chapter 2, from verse 20.
If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances,
Handle not, nor taste, nor touch
(all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men?
Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body, but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.If then ye were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
Put to death, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.
Now, if you will turn to the Galatian letter, chapter 2. One verse, verse 20.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
And then in the Roman letter, chapter 6, from verse 3.
Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
We were buried therefore with Him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection;
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin;
for he that hath died is justified from sin.
But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him;
knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over Him.
For the death that He died, He died unto sin once: but the life that He liveth, He liveth unto God.
Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.
Let us have just one further word of prayer, shall we?
Dear Lord, we have already stood by faith under that anointing which is ours in the Lord Jesus. All we want to do now is ask Thee that Thou wilt cause Thy word to live to us.
Lord, we pray that the burden for this evening may somehow be communicated clearly by the Holy Spirit. Oh, grant, Lord, that this word of Christ may come to dwell in us richly. Make it like that, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
Now, in these evening times, I have been speaking about living faith and many aspects of living faith: the need, the necessity, in these days in which we live, of a living, practical, working faith.
Not a faith which is just to do with a mental assent to Christian doctrine or to the authority and inspiration of the Bible, but the kind of faith which unites us to the Word of God; which means that the word of Christ comes to dwell in us richly; which means that we receive the implanted word. It begins to take root in us, grow up, and bear fruit.
We need that kind of faith, which means that all that we find in this Book can become our experience as we move on with the Lord. I say can be. I would like to say all that is in the Book should become our experience, but can anyone in one single life enter into all that is in this Book? It will surely take eternity to experience all that is ours in the Lord Jesus.
However, if we were only just fractionally possessing what is ours in the Lord Jesus, compared with what we shall have in the future! But most of us are not even fractionally possessing what is ours. We are, as it were, right on the edge, right in the shallows, right on the perimeter of things—saved by the grace of God, knowing forgiveness of sin, and really not going very far beyond that.
That is why we have been talking about this matter of living faith: what it is, how to exercise it, how to possess what is ours in the Lord Jesus.
Last night I spoke about the Holy Spirit—the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. What a tremendous, tremendous thing it is that God has given to us: the Holy Spirit, the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit, both the indwelling and the empowering of the Holy Spirit.
It is ours, not because you and I are worthy, not because you and I are zealous enough, not because we pray enough, but because of the finished work of the Messiah. Because of that complete and finished work, all the work of the Holy Spirit belongs to every child of God.
Now, it does not mean we enter into everything all at once. But thank God, it is all ours. The moment we see it with the eyes of our heart, then we can put our feet down, as it were, and claim what is ours in Him, and move in to possess.
Now, I want to talk about this evening about living faith and the work of the cross.
The work of the cross has also two sides to it. Christ died for us, and Christ died as us.
Christ died as my substitute. That is, He substituted Himself in my place and did what I could not do. Being without sin, He bore in His own body my sin, and God made Him to become my sin, that I might become the righteousness of God in Him. Is not that amazing?
That is the work of the cross: when the Lord Jesus died as my atonement, when the Lord Jesus died as my substitute, when He died in my place. That I could not do. There I cannot go. Only He could do that work.
Now, I think most of us, if only dimly, do understand that part of the work of the cross. We know that we cannot be saved but by the Lamb of God. We know that only He, who is our Passover Lamb, is the way by which we can come to God, the way by which we can be born of God, redeemed, and saved.
But He not only died as my substitute; He died as my representative. That is, when He died on the cross, He represented me and He represented you.
When He was crucified, you and I were crucified. When He was buried, you and I were buried. When God raised Him from the dead, you and I were raised from the dead to walk in newness of life. When He was seated at the right hand of God the Father, you and I were seated together with Him in heavenly places.
What a marvellous thing this is—so tremendous that the Apostle Paul says, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit:
When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory.
For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
He died as our representative. That is, He died as me.
Now, you may not yet be able fully to understand this. I know that for years I had no idea about this side of the cross, and wandered in a morass of Christian works, doing my very best to be a good Christian—to witness, to pray, to read my Bible, to be holy, to be everything possible.
You know, it was very hard for me. But I did every single thing possible to be a Christian because I was entirely ignorant of this truth. Although I read the Bible, it is amazing how you can read things and they just do not mean anything to you.
I had read the Bible, yet I did not really know anything about the Holy Spirit. It came as a great shock to me when I discovered that the Holy Spirit was within me and could come upon me. That was the most amazing thing.
Yet I had read John’s Gospel again and again and again. I had read those words about Jesus saying, “I will give to you another Comforter, and He shall be with you forever.” But it never entered my head.
I had read about the Spirit of truth leading us into all truth, about the Spirit taking the things of Christ and declaring them to us. Yet it was just as if there was no Holy Spirit until the day that God opened the eyes of my heart.
Suddenly I saw that the Holy Spirit had come and had taken up residence within me when I drank of that living water. When I received the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit had come within. Then I understood that He could not only be within, but upon one as well.
Oh, then it seemed to me that every other paragraph in the Word of God somehow related to the Holy Spirit. Everywhere I read, I read, “the Spirit this, the Spirit that, the Spirit the other.” Is that not so when suddenly you see it?
When you have not seen this work of the cross—what God has done with you and with me—it is amazing. We can read, “I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I,” and it does not mean anything to us. It goes through one ear and out the other. It flits across the eyes. That is all.
We can read things like, “The world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world,” and it does not mean anything. We can read that we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him, and it has no meaning. We read it, yet it has no meaning until the eyes of our heart are illuminated, until the Spirit of wisdom and revelation is given to us.
Then it is as if our eyes open and we see something. We see what God has done with us.
Now, it is one thing to have our sins dealt with. I mean, it is a marvellous thing. Can anyone be saved unless they know, however dimly, that Jesus bore away our sins?
Having had our sins borne away and cancelled out, we are justified before God. That is, in the sight of God, it is just as if we had never sinned. We are given the divine and spotless record of the Lord Jesus as our own.
God substitutes His sinless history for mine and says, “That from now on is your history.” It is just as if you had never sinned. Is that not marvellous? Cancelled out, blotted out, taken as far as the east is from the west; blotted out as a thick cloud, never to be remembered again.
When God deals with sin, He never again raises sin. It is done. It is finished.
It was Luther who once had a dream and came to God to ask about certain sins. God said, “What sin?” Luther said, “You must surely remember.” And God said, “I see no sins,” and drew, in the dream, Martin Luther’s eyes to a table. On the table was a book, and on it was written, “Martin Luther.”
When he opened the book, there was perfect righteousness. And when Martin Luther was absolutely right, God said, “I do not know of any sin.”
Jesus has borne away all our sin. In the place of our sinful, depraved, dark record, we have the record of the spotless, sinless Son of God.
Now, that is the most marvellous and wonderful thing. But having said that, we come to a practical problem. You cannot be a Christian for very long before you discover that, even if you have seen that your sins are dealt with, you have still got a big problem.
The problem is yourself.
Sometimes we think that if we were only noble, beautiful, sweet people, we would have no problem. We still would have a problem. However noble and beautiful you are, most of us are very egocentric. We like to be taken note of. We have rights.
Even without sin, we have rights. We do not want people treading over our rights. We do not want to be treated like a doormat. We do not want someone tarnishing our reputation. We do not want someone striking us on the other cheek—we will strike them back. If they take our coat, we will grab it back and take theirs.
We may be noble and beautiful, but we have got rights, right? Just because we had no sin, it would not mean we had no rights. This is the whole problem with human beings: I, sin—S-I-N. “I” in the centre. Sin. So simple, is it not?
God has answered this whole problem. He has not only dealt with sins; He has dealt with sin. He has not only dealt with the things we do, our evil works, our mistakes, breakdowns, and all that is abomination in His sight. He deals with the self-life that lies at the heart of the whole problem.
Now let me say a few things about this whole matter of being crucified with Christ. First of all, I would like to underline the impossibility of crucifying oneself.
In Christian circles, if there is any understanding of this, sometimes it all goes to a headache. Someone says, “I have got my cross back again.” They mean they have a headache, or a twinge in the hip. They have got their cross back again; they have got their affliction. Some people look upon that as the cross they have to bear. That is not what the Lord Jesus meant at all.
When people have seen a little of the meaning of our Lord Jesus’ words on denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Him, we start on the road of trying somehow or other to crucify ourselves. It is an impossible job.
Think for a few moments of the very picture of crucifixion. Of course it is impossible. You could perhaps nail one hand yourself, and you might even be able to nail your feet. But what do you do with the other hand? It is impossible to crucify oneself. It is obvious, is it not?
Yet Christians go around trying to put themselves to death, trying to fall into the ground and die, trying to put to death the deeds or works of the flesh. It is an impossible job. No wonder Christians are so miserable.
Why is it that Christians who sometimes see this become, of all Christians, the most miserable, the most sombre, the most dark, and the most heavy? Because somehow or other we try to crucify ourselves. We try to die.
It is quite a false concept. You cannot do it.
The trouble is that every time you push down one part of self, it comes up in another direction. I always think of one of those old-fashioned air cushions. If you push one side down, it comes up here; then you push that side down, and it comes up there. The air is in the air cushion—it must come up somewhere.
So if you push it down somewhere, it comes out somewhere else. Some Christians spend their whole time suppressing this, and then suddenly they find something else coming up, so they suppress that, and then it is back again where they started. They try to suppress both, and then it is somewhere else. It is an impossible business.
No wonder we feel miserable of all people the most. It is bound to be like that.
Do you really think the Lord meant us to have such an impossible task, wrestling all the time with this thing? He did say it would be difficult living the Christian life, and that we would have many tribulations entering the kingdom of God. But do you really think He has given us such an impossible task?
It is like a thing we call in Britain dockweed. You try to get that out of your garden, and most people who are not good gardeners rush out, see the dockweed growing, and just snatch it off the ground. It looks beautiful—for two days.
Then it comes up again. So they think, “All right, we will go to town on this,” and they shovel and shovel. But every little piece left in the ground becomes another dockweed plant. Every one.
That is just the same with this old nature of ours. We go to town on it. We have a blitzkrieg on it. We say, “I have just heard a marvellous message. I am walking the way of the cross. Now I have got to do it. I have got to get hold of myself. I have got to do this work.”
So we blitz the whole thing and break it all up. We say, “Oh, is this not marvellous? I feel so good about it. I have given myself a real hit. I believe I have done it. I crucified myself at last”—only to find that in place of one dockweed, we have twelve.
Then we have another blitz, bigger than before, with more prayer and perhaps a little fasting. We blitz the whole thing, only to discover after a few days that we have twenty-four or thirty plants in place. In the end, we give up and think, “I must be the black sheep.”
All these people are singing about victory, chains falling off, and joy in the Lord—and here I am.
I know I was in a company like that for some years. We used to sing those wonderful hymns: “My chains fell off, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.” They would sing And Can It Be?, and I used to look at them all and think, “Well, they have not fallen off me.”
I did not dare tell anybody because all these shining faces were singing, “My chains fell off.” I only found out years later that they were all singing it in faith.
Or that other marvellous hymn: “Be of sin the double cure, cleanse me from its guilt and power.” I used to think, “Well, I know the guilt has been dealt with, but the power has not.” Yet I thought everybody else must have this experience—not me.
Being proud, I was afraid to open up to anybody about it, because I thought somehow or other I must be the black sheep in this crew. So I did my best to smile like all the rest of them and sing it a little more, in the hope that somehow or other it would happen in the end. But it never did. It went from bad to worse.
It is impossible.
I remember years ago hearing Bob Mumford say, on this matter of being crucified with Christ, that he thought he had finally died with Christ, only to discover a little later that he had only fainted.
But is that not the experience of all of us when it really comes to it? When we do not really see this matter, we hear a marvellous message, take hold of it in some way, stir up everything that is in us, and try to pump up that faith I talked about.
Finally, we grasp the truth, and for a moment it seems, “I am dead with Christ. I am dead with Christ.” Perhaps we can even bear someone insulting us with a smile for twenty-four hours, perhaps forty-eight, or even a few days. Then suddenly it is too much of a strain. We are back again where we were.
It is impossible to crucify oneself. Yet this matter is essential. It lies at the very heart of the gospel.
What a sad and tragic thing this watering down of the gospel we preach has been.
When I turn to Mark’s Gospel, chapter 8, verses 34 and 35, I read this:
And He called unto Him the multitude with His disciples, and said unto them, If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whosoever would save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it.
For what doth it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?
For what should a man give in exchange for his life?
This is interesting to me. First of all, it was to the whole multitude with the disciples. Secondly, we take the last part of that as a pure gospel message: “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” But this verse is evidently something to do with deeper teaching.
The Lord Jesus put this whole matter right at the heart of the gospel. The Apostle Paul, by the Spirit of God, brings the two together:
I have been crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live, I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself up for me.
There is what we often call the simple gospel: “He loved me and gave Himself up for me.” And the deeper-life teaching is: “I have been crucified with Christ.”
Dear people of God, one of the most terrible things that has come into Christian circles in the last hundred years is this cheapening of the gospel.
Now, I do not for a single moment want to say anything against people like D. L. Moody or R. A. Torrey, whom I believe were anointed servants of God, nor Billy Graham, whom I likewise believe is an anointed servant of God. But when we take so much cheap imitation of their preaching, what have we got?
We have a kind of decision preaching. What it really is, is like an American presidential election: “Who will you vote for—President Jesus or President Satan? Who will you cast your vote for?” Then the challenge comes to decide.
No wonder people know nothing about the lordship of Jesus Christ. No wonder people know nothing about surrendering to the Lord Jesus. No wonder they have such a battle about obeying God.
If I choose someone, I am an equal, in a way. It is psychological. No one who preaches this means it, but what I am saying is that it is a devalued gospel. By simple decision preaching, we have put ourselves, human beings, into a position where we are something—where we are voting for someone, deciding for someone. They should be very pleased about it; we are going to choose them.
I do not find this in the New Testament. I find in the New Testament a command to obey the gospel. When there is a command to obedience, immediately the whole psychological atmosphere is different. It means that, in order to obey, the whole question of authority has come in.
A young fellow came to me just a few weeks ago, a week before I came here, at a house party I was leading. I had no idea that he did not know the Lord Jesus, that he was not saved.
I had noticed him, his dear wife, and their four beautiful children. I was interested in the family because I had never seen a family with two sets of twins. That was what first attracted my attention—how unusual it was to see two sets of twins in one family.
Then one day he came up to me and said, “Oh, I have such a problem.” I said, “Well, what is your problem?” fully expecting that he was going to pour out some problem to do with being a believer.
He said, “I just do not know. I do not know what to do. I believe in the living God, but I just cannot believe in Jesus. I cannot believe in the Lord Jesus, as you call Him.” He said, “What should I do? I just feel it is hopeless.”
I said, “I do not think it is hopeless at all. You believe in the living God?” He said, “Yes, I do.” Then I said, “Very well. Now, this is not exactly biblical, but still this is how the Lord led me at that point. You believe in the living God?” “Yes, I do.” “Then you must obey Him.”
“Oh,” he said, “and what does He want?” I said, “You must obey Him. You must repent, and you must believe on the Lord Jesus.”
He thought for a moment and said, “How do I do that?” I said, “Very simply.” He began to weep, and before long he passed from death unto life.
It was a matter of obedience. He could not make the choice because he had a problem. But when it came to him by the Spirit, I have no doubt, that he must obey God and take the leap of faith, God saved him.
When I left him, he was in no doubt about the person of the Lord Jesus. After a few days, he was revelling in the Lord Jesus, worshipping Him.
Oh, what we have done to this gospel that has been given to us. Everywhere in the Book of Acts, the apostles commanded people to believe on the Lord Jesus. They commanded repentance and faith. That brings the whole question of the authority of God and of His Christ into view.
Inherent within our becoming disciples, becoming believers—within our very salvation—is a surrender to the authority of God. We have to obey.
It is interesting to me that the Lord Jesus put it like this. He did not say, “Now everybody, you are going to have to make a choice, either between Me or the prince of this world, either between darkness or light. Once you have made that choice, perhaps some years later you must deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
No. The Lord Jesus, without any preamble, said, “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Here we have the very heart of discipleship. Here we have the very heart of what it is to be a child of God. We are to give up, as one modern version puts it, all right to ourselves; take up our cross; and follow Him.
Now, a man—although they never crucified women in the old days—if he was taking up his cross, had no more rights. He had perhaps half an hour to an hour to live, all the time between the point where he was sentenced and the point where he would be executed.
He had no further rights. There was no question of expediency, no question of compromise, because there were no more rights. He had given up all rights. His life was over. He was finished.
When Jesus said this, it was stark: “If any man would come after Me, let him give up all right to himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
He that saveth his life—that is, he that seeks to preserve his life—shall lose it. He that loseth his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall find it.
Now, I personally do not believe this is all in the future. I have no doubt there is much in the future. Those who lose their lives now will surely find a fullness of life, a reward, a position in the kingdom, so much greater than any loss they suffered.
But it seems to me, from observation in my little life and ministry, that wherever I have discovered people who are full of joy, sometimes full of laughter, full of life, overflowing, with those rivers going out, clothed with power from on high, I have discovered people who have lost their lives.
In losing their lives, they have already found life eternal. They have not only got the right to life eternal as though it were only something in the future; they are enjoying life eternal.
The problem is this: it is not just sins that stop you coming into the fullness of life and power. It is sin. That is, it is your uncrucified self that is the problem. Even if it is noble, beautiful, aristocratic, and all the rest of it, it will still effectively stop you coming into the fullness of life and power. It has to be removed.
How to remove it?
Likewise, I have noticed Christians who, as they get older, become darker and darker, narrower and narrower, smaller, more petty, mean. There is no more life in them. You have to, by faith, find Christ crucified in them.
I have discovered that they are people who have clung to their lives. They have not lost their life for His sake and the gospel’s. When we seek to preserve our lives, we discover that we have lost them.
As surely as I stand here, if you are fighting this battle of self-preservation, you are fighting that the Lord might want you to be single. You are fighting that the Lord might want you to marry. You may be frightened that the Lord may want you to go to some dreadful place on the other side of the earth.
You are fighting that the Lord may be requiring you to commit yourself to a company of believers, and you are afraid of the discipline. You are afraid of what it will cost. So it is all self-preservation.
Of course, you gloss it all up in lovely spiritual terms. You say, “I do not believe God wants me to be miserable like that. I do not believe God would give me that. No, no, no, no. I do not like this conference very much, particularly some of these evening meetings. I do not believe God is like that.”
We gloss it all up in spiritual words. It is self-preservation. That is what it is: the spontaneous, automatic fight of your self-life to preserve itself intact, preserve its identity, preserve your control over its destiny. You do not want to let it go.
But there can be no Christian life, no Christian service, and no church life until you have let go of your life for His sake and the gospel’s.
You can be in the midst of a group that knows something about the Body of Christ, and others may even be functioning, but you will be a spectator. Why? Because you are fighting this battle of self-preservation.
I know so many people who have got the truth up here, but they are always on the perimeter. They never commit themselves. They are the critics, always standing on the outside looking in and saying, “Oh, well, I do not like this, and I think this was good. I do not think that was so good.” But they never commit themselves.
It is the battle for the preservation of yourself.
Now, what I am saying is this: this is not just something to do with deeper life. This lies at the heart of the gospel.
The Lord Jesus did not want to save people who were living contradictions forever after. Here He has saved you, and you are supposed to have peace which passes understanding, but you have restlessness and are neurotic.
God has saved you, and instead of having joy unspeakable and full of glory in the time of affliction, you are a misery. God has saved you that you might overcome; instead, you are totally defeated. God has saved you that you might be a son of light, and you are living in darkness, fearful and afraid.
God has saved you that you might know perfect love, and all you know is the bondage of fear which has torment. Does the Lord Jesus want to save people that they might become living contradictions to Himself, to His salvation, and to His gospel?
No. He said, “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” He wants people who are free, who have peace which passes understanding even in the inexplicable, who have joy unspeakable and full of glory, who know what it is to live a life of fullness.
That is why He said, “If any man would come after Me, let him give up all right to himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.”
Dear child of God, have you followed very far if you have not found the cross in your path? What kind of Christian life have you been living? What kind of church life are you involved in if it escapes the cross?
Samuel Rutherford once said, “Men want Christ cheap. They want Him without the cross. But the price will not come down.”
Do you want Christ without the cross? That is, you want the salvation, the joy, the peace, the fullness, the power—but you do not want the cross.
Now I am going to tell you something. You will know that joy, peace, fullness, and power for just a few weeks of your Christian life, and that is all. Once that self-centred principle takes over again, it is all, “Give me, give me, give me. I want, I want, I want. What am I getting?”
Then you will discover before very long that you become, of all people, the most miserable, the most empty, the most dark, the most unhappy, and the most restless, because you are a living contradiction to the gospel.
The gospel has no neutral ground.
Frances Ridley Havergal once wrote one of her great hymns, and she ended it like this:
Those who trust Him wholly
Find Him wholly true.
Oh, the joy, the peace, the fullness, and the power that have been provided for us in the land. But there is no way to go over into that land except through Jordan, and Jordan is a picture of the cross. It is a picture of being crucified with Christ.
Do you remember? They took twelve stones and put them in the centre of the riverbed, and took up another twelve stones and put them on the promised-land bank. When the waters came back, the twelve stones in the river were covered forever. It was a picture of the cross: crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, raised to walk in newness of life with Christ.
There is no way into this promised land. Did you think you would get your inheritance by hanging on to your self-life intact? Did you think perhaps all that needed dealing with were the bad and base qualities in yourself, while there were many nice, noble, sweet qualities that just needed polishing up?
God says, “No. Good and bad, I have finished with you. I want to recreate you in My Son.”
Oh, what a wonderful word that is in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.
But all things are of God.
Is that not a wonderful verse? But I always think this “new creature” business can lead us to a wrong idea, because we are always looking inside for the new creature. Do you know what I mean? We are always saying, “Well, where is he? This new creature? Old things have passed away, all things have become new, and all things are of God. Where is this new man?”
I like that rendering which puts it like this, and which is perfectly faithful to the Greek: “Wherefore, if any man be in Christ, in Christ there is a new creation.”
Oh, thank God, there is a new creation. The new creation is not in my old man. The new creation is in Christ.
That will deliver you from all kinds of accusation and condemnation. Where is this new creature? Where did the old things pass away and everything become new, and all things become of God? In Christ.
In the land, twelve new stones, representing every one of the twelve tribes, were erected there on the promised-land bank of the River Jordan.
Now, do you begin to see our problem? You say to me, “Well, all right. So we have got to take up our cross. We have got to give up all right to ourselves. How do we do it?”
It is one thing to say, “He that loseth his life.” How do you lose your life? The deepest instinct in any man or woman is self-preservation. Is that not so?
We do not have to prove this. We only have to throw you, if you cannot swim, into some pool around these parts, and you will fight like fury. Even if someone comes to save you, you will fight, and you will nearly drown them as well.
This instinct of self-preservation is the strongest instinct in a human being. How, then, can anyone lose their own life for His sake? We know we ought to. We may even have got to the place where we know we have to. But how to do it—is that not the problem?
So then we start on the wearisome business of trying to crucify ourselves, trying to put to death the deeds of the body. What an impossible job it really is.
Take up his cross. Was it not beautiful that Jesus did not say, “If any man would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up My cross”? Very interesting. It was His cross, but He said, “Take up his cross,” as if the Lord’s cross must be your cross.
This principle of the cross is one of the most tremendous things in the whole Bible. What is this principle?
There can be no life without death. There can be no exaltation without humbling. There can be no wholeness without brokenness. There can be no summer without winter. There can be no harvest without a falling into the ground and dying on the part of the seed. There can be no fruit without pruning.
That is the principle of the cross. You cannot know resurrection without crucifixion.
So, if you want to know the fullness of that life and the power of His resurrection, it is in direct measure to what you know of being crucified together with Him.
I do not know whether this means much to some of you. I pray that God may reveal it to everyone, not as something heavy and dark, but as the way into power, the way into life, and the way into fullness.
I have often been interested that when the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus, on the day He went down into the waters of Jordan, the Holy Spirit came down upon Him like a dove.
People have variously interpreted this important event. It was the anointing of the Lord Jesus. People have said, “Well, the dove is a symbol of harmlessness, purity, and gentleness.” But it does not satisfy me. It never did.
Although we know the Lord Jesus was harmless, separate from sinners, undefiled, I do not somehow feel that this was the symbolism of the Holy Spirit coming upon Him like a dove.
For me, it is explained in this way. If you were a wealthy Jew, you bought a bullock or a heifer for your sin sacrifice. If you were middle class, you bought a ram or a lamb. But if you belonged to the vast multitude of the poor, you bought two turtle doves.
When John the Baptist saw the Holy Spirit coming on the Lord Jesus like a dove, he immediately understood the significance and said:
Behold, the Lamb of God, that beareth away the sin of the world!
In other words, he saw that the Holy Spirit had come upon this One to enable Him to die.
The Lord Jesus was committing Himself to the cross in the waters of the River Jordan, three years before He died. Do you understand? He did not need to be baptised. He had no sin to confess. He did not have any sin to repent of.
He went down into those waters because they were a picture of death. He was baptised into that death three years before He came to Calvary. In one sense, He died daily through all the three and a half years of His ministry.
It was the Holy Spirit, who came upon Him, who enabled Him to do just that, and finally to offer Himself up to God without spot or blemish on the cross.
This matter of the cross: what has God done with you and me?
God, in His infinite mercy and wisdom, not only gave the Lord Jesus as the One who died in our place, but gave the Lord Jesus as the One who died as us.
When He died on the cross, it was as if God saw every one of us in Christ. When Christ was crucified, we were crucified.
Did you notice that Paul did not say, as in the Authorised Version, “I am crucified with Christ”? He said, “I have been crucified with Christ.” Our old man was crucified with Christ. It happened when Christ died, in the amazing wisdom of God.
Once we begin to see it like that, I think it changes our whole concept. I know the day I saw it, it came like a bomb, as if I had been hit between the eyes.
First, I saw this whole matter of the Holy Spirit. I must tell you straight away: for myself, anyway, I do not believe it is possible to know the work of the cross apart from the Holy Spirit.
If we try to come to the work of the cross apart from the Holy Spirit, it is a work of the flesh. It is religion. It is will-worship, severity to the body, a false humility, an artificial humility. It is not the real thing.
We can afflict our bodies. We can do all kinds of things. We can try to look drab and dreary. We can try to be crucified. We can do it all. But what does it amount to? Nothing.
Do you think God is interested in pulverising you? Is that what God saved you for—so He could squash you into the ground, obliterate you, put you all in little pieces?
People have got this strange idea about God. No wonder they are frightened of Him. No wonder they have a wrong kind of fear of the Lord—not that wonderful loving respect for the Lord, but a terrible fear of God, as if He were some terrible schoolmaster, some terrible tyrant, who wants to grind them into the ground.
That is not the meaning of the cross. The whole thought of the cross is that, by bringing that self-life of yours, which has the poison of the serpent in it, to an end on the cross, you might be liberated to walk in newness of life and know what it is to sit with Christ in heavenly places.
That is why God wants you to come this way. God knows that the only way you can come into life eternal, into the fullness of that life now, is by losing your life for His sake and the gospel’s.
I have no better way, really, of describing this than the way Miss F. B. Meyer described it to me years ago. It is not my illustration.
She said, “That is you, and this is Christ.” Then she took a piece of paper and put it in a Bible. “Can you see the paper?” “No,” I said. “What do you see?” “I see only the Bible.” “So it is with you. God put you in Christ.”
“Then whatever happens to this happens to the paper. If I put the Bible there, what has happened to the piece of paper? It is here on the platform. If I take up the Bible and put it in my hand, what has happened to the paper? It is high up here in my hand.”
“You cannot see it, but it is there because it is in the Bible. If I put the Bible here on this lectern, what has happened to the little note? It is there on the lectern because it is in the Bible. The history of the Bible has become the history of the note.”
You have got it?
Now God, because He lives in the ever-present, took you who lived thousands of years after the event and put you into His Son. When He crucified His Son, He crucified you. When His Son was buried, you were buried out of sight. When He raised His Son, you were raised to walk in newness of life.
When His Son sat down, you sat down together with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
Now, I know you could hear all this and it could just tickle your mind, but when it shines into the heart—ah, you want to burst out of your skin.
I know when I saw it for the first time with the eyes of my heart, it was as if the gospel was being preached to me for the first time. I could not believe it.
There was I. I had spent four or five years beating Lance Lambert, pushing Lance Lambert, dressing him up in Christian clothes, forcing Christian phraseology into his mouth, forcing him onto his knees to pray, kicking him and beating him to make him a good, zealous Christian.
I was making him witness every day to someone about their soul’s salvation until people were frightened to death of me. What was I after five years? The most miserable person you could ever wish to meet.
Now, some might think I am still miserable. I do not know. All I know is that I got released from that on the day I saw that God had crucified me with Christ.
I was so thrilled that all this artificiality, all this façade, all this projection of spirituality that was not real, that did not come out of real life, that was like some false theatrical thing—the whole thing could go.
God was not bothered anyway about that old man. He was not trying to dress up the old man, Christianise the old man, make the old man sweet, and all the rest of it. He crucified the old man.
When I saw that, I said, “Oh, my dear Lord, I have had the shoe on the wrong foot. I have been trying to do my best to Christianise that old man. What have You done with him? You crucified him. I have been trying to resurrect him, and You have finished with him.”
I was trying to divide the good things from him, which I felt were quite a few. I was trying to get the good things out of him on one side, and the bad things I was trampling underfoot.
The trouble was that the bad things grew by the day, and I held on to the good things. Now God said, “I crucified the lot.” It was a terrible shock.
But for me, it was like a great burden rolling off my back, as if a terrible heavy weight on my shoulders had just rolled away.
You have to see it with the eye of faith. You see, now we are back again: what is this matter of living faith?
No person can ever even come to the place in their mind where they are willing to lose their life unless they have living faith. Better to hang on to the old self-life you have got than to let it go to the unknown. Is that not right?
Those of you who are wrestling with the matter of marriage, you would rather control the whole thing yourself than let God do it, because maybe God would not do it. While you are in control, you can perhaps best look after your interests.
What is the problem? Distrust. That is the problem. You talk about trusting the Lord; you are not trusting the Lord at all. You are distrusting the Lord. You are trusting yourself. You are leaning on your own understanding.
You believe you could do far better with yourself than ever God could. If you let yourself go into the hands of God, He might make you a nun. He might make you a monk. Or, on the other hand, He might bring you to the place of marriage. For some, that is worse.
It is different for everybody. But you see what I am trying to say? I am saying that you trust yourself. While you are in charge, while you have got your life in your hands and can control it, you feel you are safe.
You know at least yourself. You know that you want the best for yourself. Oh, how wrong you are. How wrong you are. The tyrant of selfhood—there is nothing like being one’s own master.
That is where you need living faith. You cannot lose your life. You cannot fall into the ground and die of yourself. You cannot know what it is to be crucified with Christ of yourself. You cannot do it yourself.
But at least you can come, in your mind, to be willing to be willing to lose your life; willing to be crucified; willing to live a crucified life; willing to take up your cross and die.
But I say no man or woman can ever come there until they have a living, dynamic faith. You have to have that little grain of mustard-seed faith, and you have got to exercise it.
You do not need a lot of faith. All you need to do is take that little grain of mustard-seed faith and exercise it, and say, “I am going to trust the Lord though He slay me. I believe God loves me. He loves me so much that He gave His Son for my life.”
Do I really believe He is going to destroy me? Do I really believe He is going to do every single thing to kill my joy, take away my peace, make my life empty, small, and little?
I will tell you this: if you let the Lord lead you, you will know much affliction, much suffering, and much brokenness. You will go many times into death.
But I will also tell you this: you will come out on the other side into life that you have never known before, power that you have never known before, an anointing that you have never known before, and a fullness that you have never known before.
It is an infallible law with God: if you humble yourself, He will exalt you in due time. If you die with Christ, you shall also live with Him. If you suffer with Him, you will also be glorified with Him.
Jesus said—I had better read it, just in case I quote it wrongly—John 12:24:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.
He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be.
If it abideth by itself—if it does not fall into the earth and die—it abideth by itself alone.
I wonder how many people here have been believers for years and are still abiding by themselves, alone. There has never been a harvest.
The one grain of wheat has never become two, let alone ten, twenty, or a hundred, because it has never fallen into the earth and died.
We can pray for multiplication until our knees are sore. We can pray for men and women to be saved all around us until we are weary with prayer. But there is no substitute for falling into the earth and dying.
If we are abiding by ourselves alone, it is because we have not fallen into the earth and died. What did Jesus mean? He meant this: “He that saveth his life loseth it.”
It is not only that he abides by himself alone. He does not even know the peace, the joy, the fullness, and the power that the gospel proclaims.
“Falleth into the ground and die.”
There are some people whom you could place anywhere on the earth, and because they know this secret, it would not be long before there was a harvest.
Margaret Barber once wrote a poem that I have here, after there had been a shipwreck. It is a strange poem to many Christians. It seems foreign to their ears. But here was a servant of the Lord who, out of her own experience of falling into the ground and dying, of knowing what it was to be crucified with Christ and live with Him in newness of life, wrote this:
Wrecked outright on Jesus’ breast,
Only wrecked souls thus can sing;
Little boats that hug the shore,
Fearing what the storm may bring,
Never find on Jesus’ breast
All the wrecked souls mean by rest.Wrecked outright—so we lament;
But when storms have done their worst,
Then the soul, surviving all,
In eternal arms is nursed;
There to find that nought can move
One embosomed in such love.Wrecked outright—no more to own
E’en a craft to sail the sea;
Still a voyager, yet now
Anchored to infinity;
Nothing left to do but fling
Care aside and simply cling.Wrecked outright—’twas purest gain;
Henceforth other craft can see
That the storm may be a boon;
That, however rough the sea,
God Himself doth watchful stand,
For the wreck is in His hand.
Now, I know that may not mean a lot to some. To others, it may mean a lot.
There is no other way into the fullness of God than to follow the Lord Jesus. To follow the Lord Jesus means the cross.
Now, I am glad that last night I spoke about the Spirit, because otherwise this whole matter is turned into religion.
It is the Holy Spirit by whom we put to death the deeds of the body.
If we really see what it means to be crucified with Christ, then that living faith springs into action. For the first time, we can reckon ourselves dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.
You cannot reckon make-believe. Some people think that if somehow or other you can just kid yourself long enough that you are crucified, that you died with Christ, it will happen. You cannot do it.
But once you see that it was in Christ that you were crucified, and that is a historical fact, and God reveals it to your heart, then for the first time you can reckon on it.
You can not let sin reign in your mortal body.
May God help us in this matter.
Living faith and the cross. So, you want to go over into the land and possess your inheritance. You want to go over into the land and find Jerusalem. You want to go over into the land and take that Jericho that is in the way.
You cannot go until first of all you know what it is to be crucified with Christ.
May God reveal this to us and lead us into a real way of life through death.
Dear people, the problem is not living. It is dying.
People are always coming to me and saying, “Oh, I have such a problem. How can I live this Christian life?” I always say, “That is not your problem. Your problem is how to die.”
If you can only learn how to die, the living God will take care of the living. If you die, you will find that you will live.
The problem is not living. It is dying.
Heavenly Father, we do pray that the Holy Spirit Himself will take over this word in its performance, preserving it from misunderstanding or misconstruction, and revealing it to our hearts.
Lord, there is not one of us that does not need to understand more deeply what the way of the cross really means. Lord, we pray that Thou wilt open the eyes of our hearts this night. Grant us that Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.
Oh, heavenly Father, work throughout all our lives and in us all to bring us to the place, Lord, where somehow Thou art able to do a real work in us.
Oh, Lord, we all want to be functioning members of the Body. Dear Lord, show us that until the “I” is crucified, there can be no real functioning.
We want, Lord, to be fruitful. Show us that until we fall into the ground, we abide by ourselves alone.
Lord, we want to know what it is to enjoy life eternal. Teach us, Lord, that we cannot know life eternal in its fullness and power until, Lord, we lose our lives for Thy sake and the gospel’s.
Open our eyes, Father, to see what Thou hast done with us in the Lord Jesus. May it come as revelation.
And we ask all this in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.